Rachel Zoe's Interior Designer: A Chat with Jeremiah Brent

As an avid viewer of The Rachel Zoe Project, I was super excited to chat with Jeremiah Brent, the newest addition to celebrity stylist Zoe's team. An interior designer and furniture maker at heart, Jeremiah joined team Zoe with intentions of becoming a junior fashion stylist. But when Rachel and her husband Rodger moved to a new 7000 square foot home, they turned to Jeremiah with a major challenge: to completely furnish and decorate the space in TWO WEEKS! In a shocking turn of events, Jeremiah was laid off from the company as a fashion stylist. But despite all the drama, fans will be happy to know that Jeremiah is still very close to Rachel and Rodger, and will be featured in the season finale of The Rachel Zoe Project, airing Tuesday night at 9/8c on Bravo.

Good Housekeeping: Jeremiah, I'm so excited to chat with you!! First off, tell me—how did you get so good at interior design? Do you have formal training?

Jeremiah Brent: Actually, I don't have formal training at all, but I did grow up around design. My parents both flipped homes. A typical weekend for us was walking through model home units. I loved walking through interesting floor plans and seeing different design aesthetics. When I was a kid I painted the walls in my room like 30 times!

GH: When did you actually start designing?

JB: It all started when I moved to Los Angeles. I became interested in building furniture, because I couldn't find pieces I really loved for myself and my clients. I picked stuff up from the street, and tweaked those pieces to make them what I really wanted. It became a career! When I first became really interested in building furniture, I went to Toys-R-Us, and spent $200 on Transformers toys. By taking the toys apart and studying how they moved, I was able to figure out how to hide a table leaf, what type of contraption I'd need to slide it under the table. I'm a really visual learner.

GH: That's amazing! Do you have a particular style that you prefer to stick to when designing furniture and rooms?

JB: Absolutely not. My design has always been a derivative of people I meet. I want to translate who they are and their personality into a room. I had a complete powerhouse client—not Rachel—who dresses very feminine and beautiful, but has a no-holds-barred attitude. So I translated that hard and beautiful personality into the space by mixing masculine lines with feminine pieces in soft colors.

GH: Ok, so this powerhouse wasn't Rachel, but let's talk about her a bit. What have you learned from your time working with her?

JB: I've learned so much from working with Rachel. One major thing I learned is more is more. It's important to pull tons of pieces! If you have lots of options to choose from, you can play around and see that things that you wouldn't originally have expected to work together actually do! That applies to both clothing and decorating.

GH: When you first started with Rachel, you were styling clothes. How is that similar to designing a room?

JB: There are so many parallels. The concept of having staple pieces with clean, basic lines, and adding accessories to funk it all up is one that applies to both fashion and decorating. For interiors, if you have a basic sofa, you can add fun throw pillows, and cool lighting to make the space more interesting. In fashion, you make a little black dress really amazing with jewelry, shoes and an incredible bag. If you have those clean, basic, pieces you can really mix things up with the accessories and make the space, or the outfit, uniquely your own. I think it's really important to bring your own personality to the space you're in.

GH: Can you suggest some ways to bring personality into your living space?

JB: One way is to create a photo wall. I recently worked with a client to do this. We blew up photos she loved of her children and from her travels, and created this amazing photo collage on one wall. If you're not sure what colors and textures to use, check out your clothes and accessories? Do you love gold or silver? What colors stand out? There really are no rules or techniques, just do what feels right!

GH: Speaking of not following rules and techniques, and just doing what feels right, in last week's episode you were asked to do something you have never done before—design a nursery for Rachel and Rodger's new baby Skyler. Can you tell us about that? How did you figure out how to do it?

JB: Absolutely. As far as the design aspect, I do know what I'm doing. But I needed to go online and research, research, research what a nursery would need. I mean, I didn't even know what a bumper was! Besides figuring that out, I learned that everything needs to be washed and super-sanitized because babies have such weak immune systems. Design-wise, I placed the crib in the center of the room, because the baby is the center of the parents' universe, the apple of their eye. I wanted the capture that moment of love, of having the parents and everyone who loves this baby surrounding it at all times.

GH: I love that! So besides the nursery, what else have you been doing for Rachel these days?

JB: I see Rachel and Rodger pretty much every day—they really are like family, and have taken good care of me. I recently designed a Rachel Zoe Collection boutique within the Bloomingdales store in NYC. It was another instance of me doing something I've never done before, but it was such an exciting opportunity and I learned so much. It was really different designing a space like this, because I really had to focus on highlighting the clothes, and making sure that the design aspect didn't overshadow Rachel's collection.

GH: You have such a great attitude, especially when challenged with doing things you've never done before.

JB: Well, I really enjoy every step of the process, and even with these huge challenges—designing Rachel and Rodger's house in two weeks, designing the nursery, and doing the boutique—I'm confident I can do it and that the job will get done. Obviously I'm nervous, and it can be hard. But I always stay positive and do the best I can.

GH: So you mentioned that you see Rachel and Rodger every day. If you've already done this boutique for them, there must be something else in the works for you and Rachel Zoe Inc. Can you tell us what's happening?

JB: I wish I could tell you!! I really do. But, you'll have to stay tuned and watch. I promise it will all come out.

Check out the season finale of The Rachel Zoe Project this Tuesday night at 9/8c on BRAVO.